a little bit closer
by makapedia
Summary: Ray snorts. Stirs the mac. "You into brooding vampires now?"


"Did you want any help with dinner?"

_Dinner._ Ray could laugh, if he wasn't afraid that the sound might wake his mother. Somehow, he doubts boxed mac n cheese at 2:43 in the morning can classify as dinner, but - but he turns to glance at Emma anyway, raises a brow at her, and watches her smile her sleepy smile anyway.

"Norman's already asleep?"

She nods, then pulls the blanket further over her. Emma's got the blanket draped over her like a cape, and the ends drag behind her, not unlike a veil. It's not even a little bit bridal, nor regal, nor… anything he associates with the likes, but it's still endearing, in that funny way only she can pull off. The motion of her nodding pulls the knitted blanket over her bangs, and her hair, already wild and unkempt, frizzes and sticks straight up.

Ray mentally licks his fingers and presses that particular match out before it has the chance to catch fire.

"Out like a light!" she half-chirps. Shuffling over to him, she bumps his hips with hers and peers into the pot. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Don't touch anything."

A bump of hips, and then Emma sticks her tongue out, whining, "Don't be mean."

"You burn _water,_" he mutters under his breath.

"You're exaggerating!"

"Shhhh," he shushes, then allows himself to bump her right back. Emma blinks, but then raises a hand to press a finger to her lips and nods again, smiling apologetically. "Mom works in the morning. She'll have my head if she knows we're still up watching cartoons."

"Adventure Time is a _good one,_" Emma says, lowering her hand. She heaves a deep sigh, and Ray reads that sleepy wrinkle between her brows with only the ease a self-made bibliophile could. "Finn is best boy."

"Sure."

"Marshall Lee is hot, though."

A lesser man - with lesser composure - might falter in the face of Emma's blatant thirst. It's still new to him, after all. Through most of their childhood, she'd been so blasé about men - and attraction in general, really. He wouldn't go as far as to pin it to strictly men, because he's not _Emma_, and with her heart of hearts anything goes, but still - it's weird, hearing her call anybody hot. It's _weird,_ because he never thought of all people, Emma would be into a Marceline genderbend.

"Didn't peg Marshall as your type."

"Even _you_ don't know everything."

Ray snorts. Stirs the mac. "You into brooding vampires now?"

"I mean." Emma shrugs, but sleepily watches him cook, even after he sends her another sideways glance. "He's not really _that_ broody."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

She clicks her tongue, then shuffles past him and over to the cabinet. "I know broodier," she says, almost too fondly, and the back of Ray's neck feels hot as Emma grabs two bowls from the bottom shelf as quietly as she can.

It shouldn't bother him the way it does. He's too old now, for Emma to be getting under his skin like this. He's too old to be obsessing over silly things like what Emma's type is. Because he already knows what it should be, anyway - Prince Charming is sleeping just down the hall, for fuck's sake - and if that isn't a damning reminder for him to mind his business, well, Ray doesn't know what else is.

"What about Norman?" he finds himself asking.

"I think he likes Fionna," Emma replies mindlessly, digging through the drawer for clean forks. "I haven't asked him, though-"

"I _meant _a bowl." As if Ray doesn't already know what Norman's type is. "Food's done."

She slides the two (two!) bowls across the counter and over to the stove. "He's asleep, remember? He snoozes he loses."

It hardly feels fair. Ray raises a brow at her again. "You're not going to wake him?"

"He barely sleeps. He's been so busy with cramming for all of his finals, I don't think he's had a full night's rest in months. I think it'd be best just to let him catch up," she says, oddly solemn. Her brows crease, and part of Ray wants to reach out and smooth the wrinkle there, just a little bit.

He doesn't. Ray spoons mac and cheese into the bowl in front of her instead. "But you have no qualms about bullying me into making you food at 3 in the morning-"

"-It's not 3 yet!"

"Shhhhh."

Emma snatches the wooden spoon out of his hand and begins shoddily shoveling soggy mac into the other bowl. Ray tugs her makeshift hood back so that she can see better and tries not to laugh at the great orange mane that's ruffled around her face, over her freckled ears. If he didn't know any better, he'd probably think that Emma didn't own a brush.

She turns to him, then, and _pouts_. "It's not 3 yet," she stage-whispers, "and _you_ weren't sleeping anyway."

"You don't know that."

"You're the stupid vampire here," Emma says, insistantly, and waves the wooden spoon at him as if it were a stake. "Making fun of Marshall and then walking around with those bags under your eyes-"

"They're Prada," he deadpans.

"_Vampire,_" she accuses, squinting.

His ears feel hot. He only hopes it doesn't spread to his face. Ray would rather puncture himself with the wooden spoon than face Emma with blushing cheeks. Hadn't she been the one to admit attraction to _brooding vampires_? Was the pot attempting to call the kettle black?

"I never said I wasn't one," he says, then folds his arms over his chest. Anything to make use of his hands. Besides, if he puts up a wall like this - if he physically protects his heart - he can continue to pretend like he doesn't have feelings at all. "You're the one pointing fingers and trying to act like it's some sort of groundbreaking revelation."

She sticks her tongue out at him and blows raspberry. Ray snatches the spoon back and shovels a chunk of cheese into her mouth. Emma gags, only for a moment, then chews, then swallows, _then_ tackles Ray down to the ground.

"Wh- _careful!_"

"What," Emma asks, pinning his skinny wrists to the hardwood floor. "Old man bones too fragile for some rough housing? Where's that superhuman strength, Mr. Cullen?"

Weirdo. She's such a _weirdo_. "You make no sense at all-"

Emma grabs a handful of mac and cheese from her bowl and just smashes it in his face.

.

Norman wakes at 3:12 to a full-blown food fight in the kitchen. Wonders, as he watches Emma pull Ray into a headlock and smears butter into his hair, how - and when - they got here.

Then he picks the blanket up off of the floor and sits far enough distance away to comfortably keep score without putting himself in the splash zone.


End file.
